Fred LeBrun: It's one calamity after another in Hoosick Falls

Published 5:28 pm, Saturday, August 12, 2017

Keeping up with the aftermaths of the various calamities suffered by the little village of Hoosick Falls requires checking off quite a laundry list, and just keeps growing.

On July 1, there was the flash flood that tore up the village when normally placid Woods Creek, which flows beneath much of the village through decrepit infrastructure, became decidedly unplacid. The village remains in clean-up mode, and probably will for some time as Mayor Rob Allen struggles with crafting short- and long-term solutions to yet another water problem for Hoosick Falls.

On Thursday, the mayor met with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, part of the slow, complicated process for getting a federal disaster declaration from FEMA. If successful, the feds will pay most of the flood damage to the village's infrastructure. The mayor could not hazard a guess how costly that will be. Short term, the way the rubble was moved from the flood, while unsightly, has created something of a temporary diversion for excessive water flows which should mitigate immediate concerns, says the mayor.

A long-term solution to Woods Creek with a mile-long formal diversionary system will cost $8 million according to an engineering report prepared last year on a state grant. Small comfort the village knew it had a problem that needed fixing and lost a gamble with Mother Nature. For a village with an annual budget of $1.7 million, it's obvious why the problem hasn't been dealt with before. It's not as if this is the only big ticket item looming or already incurred by the village, or the most pressing. The mayor is optimistic FEMA will come through, and hopeful of attracting grants from the state for the long-term fix to be done in stages.

None of this, however, yet addresses the considerable needs for relief for devastated private homeowners, who number in the many, notes a concerned mayor.

Next month, the much anticipated report on alternative public drinking water sources is due, prepared by state DEC under a consent order with polluters Saint Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International. The acquifer from which the village drew its drinking water into a still-being-paid-for water treatment facility has been infamously tainted by PFOA, courtesy of the polluters.

This is likely to be a very controversial report. Currently, it's being reviewed by the polluters, and rumor has it they are promoting merely sticking with the extensive filtration system that has been added to the existing water system, which at present seems to be working fine. Unfortunately, there are voices in state agencies who don't disagree, citing the fact that similar solutions are in place on Long Island. Of course, finding alternatives to a polluted acquifer on Long Island are few to nil. Not so in Hoosick Falls. An X factor in deciding on any close-to-home alternative has be the complicated hydrology and geology of the region matched to how PFOA, a slow, slick dude, flows underground. What is taint-free today may not stay that way.

The polluted aquifer is a big loss to the village, and Hoosick Falls has every right to be made whole. ''It's the village's water supply, not the state's,'' reminds Judith Enck, former EPA region 2 administrator. She is an advocate of the village hooking up to Troy's Tomhannock reservoir 14 miles away, far removed from the possibility of PFOA, and has called for a feasability study on the options.

At the end of July, the EPA finally made Saint Gobain's McCaffrey Street plant a Superfund site. Enck says that carries heightened attention for years and years to come, and yes, it will take that long.

If this was eight months ago, the top of the list of concerns would be the huge legal and public relations bills facing the village, which had the previous mayor's knickers in a knot, and also whether the village should approve a paltry settlement with the polluters.

Boy, the village dodged a couple of bullets there by doing nothing.

I'm told that the lawyers and public relations firm are being dealt with, but that in the current scheme of things, that's backburner stuff. There's not much news to report about a legal settlement with Saint Gobain and Honeywell International either, except that bright minds are working on it behind the scenes and the previous document prepared by Glens Falls lawyers that occupied so much of our time last January is now attached just inside the outhouse door where the Sears Roebuck catalogue used to be.

And that's about it. No. No wait, there's the ticking bomb.

If it's Hoosick Falls there's always a ticking bomb. Smart money says the next big pollution revelation in Hoosick Falls will come out of the unlined, now closed village landfill. Apparently the leachate pollution numbers being recorded are impressive. The DEC is monitoring the landfill, and every other potential source of pollution in the village.

Recently Thayer Pond, next to the landfill, has been made off limits by the DEC in terms of eating the fish, although I'm told the locals had that worked out years ago.